The Third Eye of the Sharmat
by Meruet
Summary: What really happened at Red Mountain? Everything and nothing, so even Dagoth Ur gets to be the hero of his own story.
1. Chapter 1

The eastern heart of the world is washed in red, a currency traded in anger, passion and blood. There are times when it is all he sees, for the fires of the Star-Wound are omnipresent in the lands beyond the Ghostgate, and he has not moved from his place within the Heart Chamber for a very, very long time.

Dagoth Ur's state of mind and existence is alien to most, though he would describe himself as perfect without irony. He is the dark secret of a proud nation, a shadow lurking between the lines of old histories and scripture, a taboo in a land where triunes are holy and a fourth transforms the sacred into the profane. He dreams in his chamber, his mask gleaming golden in the light of the fire, exalted before the presence of Akulakhan. Once in a while, he stretches and _breathes_ – broadcasting his madness upon the winds. It is a wordless cry of protest that roars from the heart of Vvardenfell, dispersing his presence beyond the chamber and seeping in through the cracks of Dunmeri minds, his voice beckoning and whispering like the lightest of ash-tainted breezes in his search for those who would be worthy of his House.

It fails to disturb him when his name becomes synonymous with evil, for what is one more injustice in the face of his febrile visions and history? To trace the trajectory of his fall was to understand that those who had been central to the events that had occurred at the Red Mountain so long ago are now all monsters in their own way. There was a king who might or might not have been splintered into a thousand animunculatory fragments along with the rest of his people; driven by a desperate tonal architect to form a golden skin for their denial. There was a half-forgotten shield-thane who has been blasted apart and into his armour, living on only in the accusatory whispers of his last coherent memories. There were three thieves who had sought power for Love, ambition and purpose; and last of all, there was a spirit, reincarnated endlessly through the ages, free to walk wherever and however it would, but always, always falling into the patterns of that old, unfinished story.

The years have brought change to everything, but he still dreams of Nerevar, and the cherished days of Resdayn.

...

There are few histories more sacred than the Velothi Exodus that brought his people to their home, but Dagoth Ur has gone beyond blasphemy, and so he exalts the era of Resdayn above all else. 'Resdayn' was a word that once rolled off the tongues of the Chimeri people with ease. It was omnipresent in both breath and ink, yet there had been none who had used that name as they had, a single word to describe a thousand dreams.

The House of Dagoth had been second only to the ascendant House Indoril in those days and Voryn Dagoth had ruled as Dagoth Ur ruled them now, the unquestioned leader attended only by his kin. His was a House of Velothi mystics; a tribe of witch-warriors who had mixed their love of ritual and worship with the arts of war, never as reckless or as inspired as the Telvanni, but no less delighted with the mysteries of the arcane and the power that such mysteries provided.

Voryn Dagoth is a mer who respects greatness and so he is proud to serve the Hortator, to be the last among his people to close that circle of friendship. Traditionally speaking, as the leader of House Dagoth, Voryn's position is not far behind that of the Hortator's, but the struggles against the Nords and the Dwemer have accorded Nerevar with a certain status, something more akin to the Khans of the tribal era than a General of the Houses. To rule and draw breath in Resdayn is to maintain a constant guard against the vicious politics of the Great Houses and the ferocious raids of the Nords, and although his lack of vulnerability to the foresters of Mephala assures him that he is competent, he, like the rest of Nerevar's friends and Councilors, cannot fault the Hortator for possessing a certain strength of mind and character that is beyond his reach.

There are those who see little but the ring flashing upon the Hortator's finger, but Voryn's respect had been won years before that, when a rough soldier of House Indoril had argued fiercely before an assembly of the Houses for the right to lead an army against the chieftains of the Hoary Men and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. His friendship had come swiftly on the heels of that victory, when both warrior and mystic had discovered a shared passion for the intricacies of Dwemer animunculi. It is half the reason why he continues to offer his unconditional support for the peace treaty with the Dwemer. The treaty has brought them closer in recent years. Nerevar is glad to have his faith to armour him against the complaints of two nations, to pass his time without judgment. It is during these shared moments of dusk that Voryn finds himself yearning for a certain something, something beyond good wine, conversation and companionship. Perhaps it is selfish, but Voryn is glad to be able to provide that sense of understanding, even if the rumours of the experiments conducted by the Dwemer technicians continue to worry him. There is Alandro Sul, of course, who would follow Nerevar to his death if he had asked it of him, but he offers as little praise as he does criticism, being aware of his nature as a simple soldier.

Voryn has never met the Dwemeri King, and so his curiosity surges with each mention that Nerevar makes of the mer. The formalities between them had faded long ago, and so he asks his questions. Why is Nerevar so adamant about maintaining this treaty with the Dwemer, even with the full weight of criticism from three of his most trusted counselors on his shoulders? What is it about King Dumac that had inspired him to propose this peace to begin with, even with the complete lack of trust between their nations? Surely the friendship of a foreign king could not be worth this much, to risk the happiness of his people.

The fading light of day had cast shadows upon Nerevar's face, but his smile is unmistakable and it creates a vivid image of confidence; of a figure speaking without doubt beneath a blood-red sky.

"Did you know this, Voryn? Our people followed Veloth across the world to the East because we learned that there was no future in perpetuating old archetypes. But the Dwemer had understood this long before Boethiah came to us, and so they had no need of revolution. They knew that the gods, or the Aedra as we continue to call them, were dead from the very beginning. There is a sense of despair in their culture that stems from this realization, but Dumac spoke to me and he told me that he had come to understand that their essence still remains in the laws of the world. He spoke to me of a force that they had come to know as MHARA, an attraction that draws people together, to give them a power that they could not acquire alone. I knew then that I could love him, that there were things that we shared beyond the troubles of rulers since the world itself would permit it even as culture forbade it."

The silence that follows his speech is palpable even though he knows that Nerevar expects a reply from him. It is an uncanny thing, something wholly unsuited to someone so beloved of the Three Good Daedra and so naïve in the gloom of the future. And yet, despite the ill-advised nature of this ambition, it is from this very moment that he begins to think of him, not as Indoril Nerevar Mora the Hortator, but Nerevar the Reconciliator.

...

Those were the days of Resdayn and he would have sacrificed a great many things for them not to have ended the way that they did, even if it meant blasphemy of the highest order to pursue that sort of stasis. But peace is an ephemeral thing in the Arena of the Mundus, and the future eventually had its way with them. When Sunder struck the Heart of Lorkhan and Keening sliced its sound into a suitable shape, the world, along with the tone of the Doom Drum's beat, shattered into a series of myriad, impossible fragments.

Misbegotten ambitions marked the subtitles to all of their sorrows. He died at Red Mountain, he knows that much. But he seems to have retained his consciousness. Death is only an illusion, as painless as a breathless sleep. It would have been a welcome relief, but his thoughts are a tangled mess, frequently unspooling along a single thread, towards a single compelling reason.

"Nerevar."

There is but a single point of orientation in this storm of shadows, and he turns to his Hortator for guidance as he always has. (A lie, but he tells it anyway).

"Where…? When…?"

His questions trail off into muffled breaths. His surroundings are no better than his mind, as indistinct as the world through a lens of clouded quartz, but he feels a warm and rough hand press itself against his forehead, tilting him backwards as a voice whispers into his ear.

"Wake up."

He falls but he never lands, and so he opens his eyes to find only madness.

...

The roads in the waking world twist and turn into impossible distances, so the only way to walk is to retrace familiar patterns found in Memory. Voryn is a dead god dreaming and has little need of logic, but he finds comfort in familiarity. It does not surprise him when the paths lead him to the gates of the Mourning Hold. If the Red Mountain had been the focal point of change for Nerevar and his companions, then Mournhold was the nexus of their history, the place where they had all joined together under the banner of Moon-and-Star.

The walls of the Mourning Hold are as strong and solid as ever, but the streets are smaller and dustier than they have ever been. The only road permitted is marked by sets of gleaming footprints on the cobbles. The message is clear: Walk as we did or do not walk at all. It is the first sign of the immutable that he has encountered since the song of the Doom Drum and Voryn can't quite shake the sense that he is intruding on something private.

The scene that he approaches only confirms it. A soldier sits under an awning with a grimy daggerlad curled up next to him. The lad's newly shaved head is resting on the soldier's shoulder, and together they watch as fragments of ash rain from the vivid crimson sky.

The soldier shifts, tightening his grip on the boy, and the daggerlad turns to look at him. There is a moment of tension, an inhaled breath, and a solemn eternity which shatters as their lips meet. Their hands interwine and their bodies press against each other in a frenzy of desire, but someone cries out and their kiss is broken, and both withdraw with blood on their lips.

"This _already_ happened," the daggerlad spits, scrambling away from his lover and exiting the scene.

Voryn's heart goes out to the soldier, his breath catching in his throat as he tries to suppress a wordless rage. Blood and betrayal persist even in this place, but Nerevar does nothing more than glance at his hands, at the blood staining his fingers where he had touched his mouth, smiling wryly almost as if to admit that he had deserved that. Voryn wants to scream at him, at them and at everyone, but the weight of Nerevar's gaze turns upon him, and he finds that he is unable to give voice to his frustration.

"What now, old friend?" Nerevar asks.

"Whatever you wish," He chokes out.

"He promised me that this place would remain. He owes me that much at least, to protect it even when the years run red. Mournhold will always remain even through the seas of tears and blood, even as the world shifts beyond recognition. I bound him to oath for that, for love and rue and memory. What about you, Voryn, my first among [...], what will you bring me? What do you have that will hold true even as all else lies forgotten? What does your Hortator demand of you?"

There is but one answer for this. Loyalty. _Loyalty_, he thinks. _I gave you that much at least, or I tried to, or I will._

...

Away, away, and beyond the beyond. Voryn leaps sideways through the shards of time, unable to bear the pressure of the moment. The fragments fail to wound him because all things are permitted here in the light of the Blue Star, even when one's actions or presence are devoid of context. He dashes through the void without pause, the rotting materials of time scattering like snow before his onslaught, towards a moment without demand or comparison.

He finds himself at a watering-hole when his feet can carry him no further, a place where caravans station themselves to resupply and tend to their needs. Nerevar Mora is here, clad in old sandals, patched armour and a threadbare cloak. The caravans have halted for the night, and Nerevar is the only one who is still awake; a lonely watchmer sitting by a meagre fire. He clutches the cloak tightly about him in a futile attempt to keep the chill of the rain from reaching him, and although his sword remains in his hand, his eyes are distant and his face is sad.

It pains him to acknowledge it, but this Nerevar wears his heart upon his face, and Voryn can understand his grief even if Nerevar himself doesn't know why his heart is breaking. It is almost too much for him, the emotions manifesting in a constriction of his chest, and it drives him to emerge from the darkness, attired in his red velvet robe and golden ornaments. He shapes the air with his hand and a basket of fine wickwheat bread and comberry brandy appears.

"This is yours, and this, and this..." He whispers, piling treasure after treasure at the feet of the lonely watchmer. He gestures once more, and banners unfurl from the trees to reveal lines of calligraphy paying tribute to his heroism.

"All of this is yours, you've earned it. And if you desire anything more, I will grant it."

Indoril Nerevar the Hortator looks at him, a storm behind his eyes. He reaches out and clasps Voryn's hand in his own, and his hand is strangely gentle.

"And you...?"

"I..." He pauses, his mouth as dry as ash. "I too, am yours."

Nerevar sighs and his grip tightens. "You appear before me at a time when I am without friends or family, and I am grateful for your efforts. But you are still the first among my betrayers, the Ur-traitor to my existence. You used the Tools, Voryn, and Memory will hold this information against the both of us until the end of our days."

"I am sorry," he whispers, his voice thick with unshed tears. "I won't make the same mistake."

"Again,"

Nerevar's reply is a knife to his throat, but Voryn does not resist.

...

A mystic and a mechanic tilts the world on its axis and buries his hands within, the magnusian formulas numbers sifting through the cracks of his fingers like grains of fine saltrice flour.

Voryn can sense his actions like a tireless clicking deep beneath his soul. He wonders if the others can feel the same sensation, if they've all lived for so long and in so many possibilities that the lines between world and person have been blurred beyond all division.

...

The Sharmat sits in the Heart Chamber with the Tools, listening to the steady pulse of the Doom Drum. Systoles and diastoles wash over him, creating a rhythm in which his thoughts might march in lockstep formation. It reminds him of his own banalities, the unbreakable shape of his existence, his picture-perfect competence and it makes him _angry_. The Heart sees him for what he is, a reflection that is almost stroboscopic in its insight; sharp, repetitive and wholly devoid of inspiration.

He is so weary of Nerevar and his endless confessions, this UnTime that spirals on without end. It drives him again and again to the other side of the pattern where he wants it all for himself, where the power comes at a cost beneath his concern (and he has done this before, he knows). He seizes the Sunder, buoyed by the waves of his choking rage, his knuckles turning pale with the force of his grip, and slams the head of the hammer into the bleeding Heart of Lorkhan until his head spins with the impact of his blows. The rich sounds of the Heart pass into him, unbearably poisonous without the influence of Keening's sharpness and he swells with the power like the pregnant demon of potential, stretched to the point where he finally, finally ruptures into a supernova.

The force of the explosion splits him apart into a thousand pieces, spinning endlessly within a void. It casts him beyond, towards a state of origin where he finally escapes the coils of the Dragon. And he is new again, a primal wail that has grown to encompass the world beyond sight and sound, older than music and brighter than a star. The world is within him and so it is him, the ultimate reference point of the pattern that flows through the subgradience of being. Revelation demands celebration, and so he leaps for joy at the beauty of his new Self, gambolling through the paths of the world like a newborn Nix-Hound pup.

The purity of his happiness is short-lived.

The Sharmat is a creature of action at his core and he knows that the world will warp into a shape beyond his pleasure if he does nothing. He can see a thousand years and miles in each direction, through the tangled coils of a maddened Dragon. The future collapses always into disaster, where the Brass God walks the earth, singing denials without pause. The Sharmat is a complete being that needs only the solipsistic and so he is beyond denial, but he thinks that he sees a many-headed serpent or a man following in its wake, a dangerous thing that tells only stories that hold truth.

He would grasp that image by the throat to choke the life out of it, but no, it is not yet time for that, and he is not ready. His concerns are more immediate and so he turns his attentions elsewhere. For the first time in his long, scattered life, he understands the nature of purpose, and he knows what he must do. He will erase the n'wah, expand the borders of Resdayn and reward the pure and the worthy for their service to better shape his pleasure. This will not come to pass without conflict, and so he clutches and claws at his body, groaning as he rips chunks of flesh away from it. He is a budding branch filled with his children, sequences of neoplasmic simulacra running wild through the four corners of the world. He bids them to assemble without breath, for the mind speaks without sound to the body and so the Sharmat and his army find themselves lined up at the center, at the battlefield where all fate is determined.

His enemies are false Triune, the heretical ALMSIVI and their champion the Hortator. Blade and bonemold meet flesh, and the magic thrown from both sides clashes and spins whole galaxies of stars. The Blue Shift still guards the heavens, but Dawn-and-Dusk appears to bear witness and shepherd the transition as the Black-Hands Mephala at hir most nihilistic dances in the skies as everything is consumed into an orgy of blood and death.

The power of the Sharmat is great, but the ALMSIVI are cunning and so he finds himself trapped within a hemisphere of souls. The cries of the Velothi spirits bind him as no other nets would have been able to, and he finds that he is suddenly impotent, unstable to strike at his boundaries even in frustration. The last image that greets him is the grim face of the Hortator and the edge of a burning blade.

_Oh_, he thinks. This event is not without its place.

* * *

...

Notes: Rewrote a bunch of stuff.

...


	2. Chapter 2

The nature of sin is a strange topic in a world where the foresters of Mephala walk openly in the streets of their cities and the tenets of Boethiah are spoken of with utmost admiration. Voryn Dagoth is in motion again, moving from scene to scene as he avoids the call of Memory. It is vastly more preferable than standing still, when even the earth beneath your feet might shift into an uncertain shape. He dreams, or comes across a riverbank where Almalexia and Nerevar are working together to build a tiny city out of clay with their hands. Nerevar gathers the clay while Almalexia shapes and marks it with detail, but Nerevar is a fast learner and a hard worker, and soon he is designing whole sections of his own with greater efficiency than before.

He watches as Almalexia frowns, and finally ceases her actions altogether. Nerevar reaches out to her in entreaty, but she turns to leave without a shadow of a doubt on her face, her feet taking her heavenward and beyond.

Voryn is eager to avoid another confrontation with Nerevar and so he follows in her footsteps, but the path beneath him twists and he dissolves into yet another moment, another instant where a womer with red hair is being carried in a palanquin. The earth before her is riddled with cracks, as hard and as sharp as glass. She descends from her seat of honour and removes an object that could be either a sword or a needle. She stabs it into her skin, unpicking herself sinew by sinew until all that is left of her is her magic weaving her into the tapestry of her land.

He blood waters the parched soil, leaking pools and rivulets for her followers to quench their thirst. They drink until they are bloated with it, their eyes glowing crimson with vitality, burying themselves in the ashen soil of her body as they mark their skins with her glory.

"Mother Morrowind, Mother Morrowind!" they cry repeatedly in delirium as the land itself laughs in response.

Almalexia possesses both the splendour of the stars and the bounty of the earth. And Voryn is _furious_, because what is this if it is not greed and sacrilege?

(Hypocrite)

...

The value of a wounded Dragon is protean when all the possibilities can be permuted by the Mnemoli. He walked through a maelstrom of snow and found himself here, on the other side of the mirror where even the lowliest of demons might obtain paradise. Paradise is a war that trickles on in cycles and cycles, pushing and yielding without conclusion. He saw the gap in their lines the instant he fell through his reflection, the Hortator struggling on with no one beside him. And he took his place, because how could he do any less with such an invitation?

The battle has not gone well for them today, though they have yet to lose the war. Vivec had unleashed fire and a legion of monstrous children upon them; a many-armed thing shaped like an old ideal. Voryn Dagoth's armour weighs heavily upon his shoulders and his long sweep of dark hair is matted with sweat and grime, but he does not complain, because it could be worse and they were still paying the price for Vivec's actions. Their warriors litter the battlefield along with the bodies of his kin, half-bitten into strange explosions of gore.

Voryn wanders the battlefield, offering healing when salvation can be accepted and condolences when it cannot. Odros has lost both his arms, and Endus lays groaning, caught halfway between dissolution and being. He cauterizes the wounds of the first, and brings mercy to the other. Both will be renewed with the dawn.

Nerevar is here, as he has always been. The fight has not been kind to him either, and his armour is rent and battered, though the flame of his sword still burns true. The ever-faithful Alandro Sul is supporting him, wordless and quiet as ever even as exhaustion clouds his brow. Voryn approaches him and begins to mutter the incantation for a healing spell, but Nerevar shakes his head and raises his hand to stop him.

"Thank you, but there will be time for that later," He says wearily, leaning heavily onto Sul.

They light pyres to return their dead to the ash. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, people and country mingled together into an interminable exchange. There is no time to inter them in the proper Velothi fashion, which seems both strange and ironic to Voryn, but then again, there is little need for that either when everything cycles back into the war. The fortresses that Voryn cannot remember building offer them shelter from the elements. Voryn doesn't know if they ever had names either, but Gilvoth swears that they once did and that House Dagoth had named them at the beginning of it all.

There is warm water for a bath and a warm bed, and Voryn would have gladly sunk into either, but he restrains himself as he always does to direct his attention to more important matters. He tends to Nerevar's wounds, sponging the dirt and blood away with clean linens as gently as he can. Nerevar still flinches once or twice, but neither of them gives comment to it. This is Voryn's favourite time, the time when there is no strength to think, to speak, nothing for them to do but simply _be_. They sit together, left hand clasped in right, heads leaning against each other, taking comfort in the presence and warmth of the other.

It begins as it always does: with a kiss. Each kiss is always new, and each kiss is the always the first. He marks a path in breath and touch, counts seconds in hoarse cries of pleasure, and timelessness in their mutual embrace, of each lingering moment of tenderness that clouds the air.

"How long have we been fighting against the Three?" Nerevar murmurs, twining a lock of Voryn's hair in his fingers.

"I don't know," Voryn whispers in reply. "Time is fluid here."

Nerevar is silent, but then he buries his face in Voryn's chest and weeps openly, concerned with neither masculinity nor propriety.

"In another moment, I murdered you without hesitation. I am so tired of killing my friends for both love and vengeance."

He runs his hand down Nerevar's back, aching as always in sympathetic misery. "What are we?" He murmurs, clasping his lover close to him. The salt of Nerevar's tears sting his wounds and scratches, but he pays it no mind.

Nerevar's sobs soon subside, and his breath calms.

"I am supposed to be dead," He says dreamily. "I was a child again, playing in the courtyards of House Mora. A womer in a blue dress came to take me away. But I refused, because I knew that my friends needed me."

Voryn's heart skips a beat. "I'm alive. I need you. So..."

"I am proud of all of us," Nerevar interrupts suddenly. "What we have here is sacred."

"Sacred...?"

"This is a primordial time, a mythical time created in mimicry of the Dawn when the Aedra walked the earth. And we have learned to live in it, to reshape ourselves to each instant of it."

"What does that make us then?"

"Gods. Monsters. Gods and monsters."

"Will there..." Voryn hesitates. "Will it end well for all of us? Will it even come to an end?"

"I don't know. But I am so very, very tired."

"I wish..." Voryn begins, his restraint falling away to reveal a desperate yearning. "I wish I had not used the Tools, but I wish that I had them now, to gain the power to satisfy all of my desires. Then you can I could both be happy, and maybe we could forget everything that had happened before. I wish that I had stayed loyal to you, but I wish that I had enough power to make all of my dreams come true. If we are gods, then there should be a way for us all..."

"Perhaps there is a way," Nerevar replies. "But if there isn't, then we shall just have to make one."

...

Change comes for them in a blaze of fire and screaming iron, on a red morning when they had assembled yet again for another cycle of war with the ALMSIVI. For the first time in his life, Voryn's courage truly fails, before the sight of this vivid vermillion eye that reduces them all to specks of gleaming dust. He can only watch as it coils around them, serpentine-terror and destruction that grinds their troops to dust, their brothers to ash, people to less than meat and bone. It raises a heavy paw with needlepoint fingers, bearing down upon him, but Nerevar seizes his arm, half-carrying, half-dragging him away from the scaled beast that hunts them.

Chronocule to chronocule, and on and on, through scenes of love and war they run, always one bare step ahead of the unsympathetic feminine force that reaches out to return each disparate spark to the flame. Two becomes three, three becomes four, and more and more until suddenly they find that they are here, again, at the Red Mountain and they are all together with their friends, even Dumac and Alandro Sul.

"Did you –"

"I saw it –"

"It hates us, it wants –"

They gabble over and over in hushed whispers, faces pale with fear, their quarrels forgotten in the face of a greater threat.

The sky splits and the eye of the demon appears once more, scales grinding and screeching against each other, clicking madly with each movement. It is almost enough to make him feel strangely mortal, as he has not felt for a very long time. He sneaks a sideways glance to the others, noting their clenched fists and defiant eyes, and he knows that they can sense it too; this fragility that once defined so much of their existence.

It is Nerevar who makes the first move, who raises his sword, the Trueflame, over his head and charges forth with a war cry that shakes the earth. His denial is pitifully small, but it breaks the spell of fear that has been cast over them. Suddenly it is like an old memory again, of old wars against the Hoary Men, of rival khans, of dissenting Houses and it is no longer new and terrifying. There is no strategy here, only a dance that echoes the arts of Mephala, cold murder fuelled by the drive for self-preservation.

The beast rears its head and lashes out at them. Voryn hurls handful after handful of magic at it, always mindful of its needlepoint fingers and spiked tail. It heaves itself up and crashes down upon them in waves of force, and once, it almost crushes Vivec, clicking out a mocking chant as it does so. _Netchiman's son, catamite, mortal soldier and nothing more._ But Vivec dodges, nimble as ever, and slashes at the paw with Muatra, leaving a smoking wound in place of scales. It screams and turns its attentions to Dumac, but Dumac parries it with his hammer, as unyielding as ever, laughing as he swings his weapon.

"Not yet, not in this loop of time, although my sweet Nerevar and I have killed each other a thousand times over and stayed our hands a thousand times more!"

It is that eye that almost serves as his undoing. It fixates upon him, violent, gleaming, and iridescent, a spiralling nebula of madness and anger that accuses him over and over. _You are dead. Dead, dead, dead. There is no place for you here. This is not your time. This battle is over. _He dies a thousand deaths over and over beneath that gaze, one for each bubble of time that has split off from the whole.

It is the sight of Nerevar rushing forth to save him once again to give him the strength to scream the Sharmat's denial into its face. He reaches deep into himself and splinters, dividing into a thousand homunculi that crawls over the beast like a relentless army of ants, biting and harassing it without pause. _I am the world and I will not be defied._ He blinks, and there they truly are, Vivec in giant-form with his head aflame, Sotha Sil with his enhanced self, Almalexia with her mask of war and Nerevar, a shifting shape haloed in victory.

A thousand cuts and a thousand bursts of magic follow each of their actions. They are gods and they will not lose to Time. Nerevar makes the final slice in the throat of the beast, and Almalexia comes forward, treading upon the back of the writhing monster. Voryn doesn't know if she has grown in size or if the monster has shrunk, but her feet are crushing it into dust with every step.

"Don't you understand?" Almalexia cries out, endlessly triumphant. "Only we can decide what really happened at the Red Mountain."

And then they are all laughing together, hysterical with victory, riding the wave that comes after an escape. And there are tears that follow and confessions, and embraces that are shared to confirm the knowledge that yes, there is still love despite all that has happened. And it is Sotha Sil that regains his sense of calm first, as it should be for the oldest and wisest of them all.

"We have defeated the Jill-servant of the Dragon, but there will be others who will continue to harass us until this has been resolved."

His words sober the atmosphere almost instantly. Nerevar cocks his head and looks at his old teacher.

"What does it matter? We will not lose to such creatures."

Sotha Sil shakes his head, "It is more complicated than that, and nothing of benefit will happen if time does not return to its linear form. We will lose ourselves again in this traumatic existence."

"What do you propose that we do?" Nerevar asks.

"The turning of the kalpa," Almalexia interjects, her body tense with the weight of her prescience. "When the order of the new world is decided and things are set in stone for an age."

"Yes," Sotha Sil nods. "This is a false Dawn, but we must end it properly, and we must end it on our own terms."

"With the old things, whose names are now only numbers," Vivec says quietly.

"But how?" Nerevar asks. "They are dead."

"Can a god truly die?"

"It doesn't matter," Voryn speaks up. "We will find their closest substitutes."

"Substitutes...?"

"My lord, Hortator, Nerevar, friend, companion and _lover_," Voryn says, his voice quivering slightly on the last word. "It began in death, blood and betrayal, and it must end that way. I have seen the shape of things to come, I know how it can end well for us, and I ask your permission to leave and muster an army to fight against you, to gather your old foes, the Hoary Men and send them against you."

"Against me? But –"

"I must." He interrupts. "Grant me that at least. If I had not used the Tools... but that is not important now. I was the first to betray you, and so let me be the last. Let me be the first to pave the way for you to walk."

Nerevar's brow creases into a frown, and he opens his mouth to protest. But Voryn looks at him, as silent and certain as he has ever been.

"Please,"

Nerevar relents and pulls him into an embrace. He places a kiss on Voryn's forehead, one kiss to serve as a ration for all of eternity, and Voryn can feel it burning even though there is no fire.

"Go forth, Dagoth Ur," Nerevar says formally. "And do what you must."

...

He dresses himself in red because tempters must always be beautiful, and he has always looked his best in red. He wears a golden mask because oracles must be grand and inscrutable, and the more the gold blinds them, the less likely they are to see through his lies. He raises his hands and suddenly the Tools are in them, and he gifts them formally to Nerevar with only the slightest hesitation.

"It is your turn to wield them now."

Nerevar accepts them willingly; glad to share in their sin. He passes Sunder to Dumac, to better arm his champion against the coming battle, but he keeps Keening for himself, striking it experimentally against the rim of a shield where it echoes with a sound like the shadow of the moons.

"How will you achieve this?" Nerevar asks.

"As we have achieved everything thus far," Voryn smiles grimly. "With deceit."

...

Titanomachia to end all wars, as should be expected from a group of companions who walked as though grandeur was their right. They stretched the displacement of time around the Mountain and Morrowind, and drew the Nords and even the Orcs into their struggle. Dagoth Ur shields himself against the howling, lacerating winds. Kyne has roused herself even though the Time is not yet right, and Boethiah has come forth in a pillar of flame to greet her, two interpretations of an ideology to meet in battle for the first time. And Lorkhan is here, beyond all expectation, here to grace their ascendance.

Lorkhan has his Heart again, and Dumac meets him in battle, gleaming with the strength of Trinimac, but Dagoth Ur defeats him and he falls. Vivec blasts him away, but he can still see, he can still watch as the events pour forth like an unstoppable tide, and he watches as Nerevar wrests Lorkhan's Heart away from him, fulfilling Dumac's role for him, and he knows that it is over, and he marks the despair on the faces of Wulfharth and all those who knew where they really were as the Blue Shift dissipates from the sky and Time returns to its normal linear form.

And Dagoth Ur sits at a crossroads. At his left-hand side is the path of the Sharmat, where success grants ambition and selfish desire, for he is not without greed and he lied (only a little) when he said that he was doing this to serve Nerevar. At his right is the path of Voryn, where loss grants respite and repentance, for he is not without guilt and he lies when he says that he wants to have everything only for his benefit. Each path brings its own victory and it is Nerevar who will determine which will come after, for he is Dagoth Ur, first among traitors and first to pave the way for the Hortator.

* * *

...

Notes: Finally done! Thank you for reading. This drove me completely nuts while I was writing it.


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